


South of Stockholm

by Musyc



Series: Shelter and Sanctuary [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Anal Sex, Draco Malfoy - character, F/M, Hermione Granger - character, Stockholm Syndrome, Voldemort Wins, captive/slave, dark themes, post-war AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:05:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musyc/pseuds/Musyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy's loyalties have always been to himself, and his concern for his own safety is paramount, but when the war ends with Potter's death and Voldemort controls Hogwarts castle, Hermione Granger finds herself under Draco's protection. A Gryffindor needs to play a Slytherin's game in order to save herself and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	South of Stockholm

Walden Macnair dragged Hannah off at the end of a long chain, her broken hands clutching futilely at air. Hermione watched, her eyes too red and dry to weep any longer, her throat too raw to scream again. She turned her head, ignoring the tight feel of the lacerations on her scalp and the blood-clumped hair that clung to the back of her neck, and stared at the end of the room, at the elevated platform stretching across the width of what once was Hogwarts' Great Hall. Voldemort lounged in his throne in the Headmaster's place, legs spread wide with Bellatrix curled between his feet. Her head rested on his knee, her fingers played over his shin, and around her neck gleamed a braided cord in seven shades of Weasley red, hair and blood mingled in a trophy. She looked drowsy, satiated, and the corners of her mouth curled with pleasures Hermione shuddered to imagine.

Voldemort raised one thin hand and pointed a finger to the line of women. Hermione held her breath, lips moving in a silent prayer, in one last ditch effort to reach a god who'd abandoned her. Voldemort's bony finger aimed at Parvati, and Hermione raised her eyes in resigned gratefulness before she could see Parvati's olive skin go grey. Over Voldemort's throne, in a glowing sphere of green light and smoke, a pair of round-framed glasses spun. A woman screamed and Hermione tore her eyes away from all that remained of her best friend to see Rabastan Lestrange fastening a collar around Parvati's neck. Bellatrix gave a throaty laugh as Parvati was hauled away and Voldemort pointed to another woman in the line.

Hermione shivered on her knees, watching friend after friend go up to the throne, watching friend after friend taken away by another Death Eater, rewards to Voldemort's loyal servants. She expected she would be last. It seemed logical to her. She was the Muggle-born, she was Potter's friend and confidant, she was one of the largest thorns in Voldemort's side. He would make her wait until the end, make her quiver and tremble in anticipation and fear. There was Rowle, the big brute who'd snapped Dean's neck. There was Crabbe, looking for revenge after his son's death. There was Avery, Nott, Rodolphus Lestrange. _There_ was.... Hermione folded her hands together, moving them slowly to keep the chains connecting her wrists from making noise and drawing attention to her. Not him. Please, not him.

Greyback staggered up to the throne, eyes glazed with drink and chin coated in blood. He bowed low, his balance breaking and dropping him to his side at Voldemort's feet. The werewolf laughed, chortling and apologizing in gravelly, stuttering tones. "So sorry, my Lord, so sorry. A little worn out." He rolled to his back, waving his gnarled and twisted hands in the air. "I broke my toy, my Lord. I humbly request another one."

Hermione was glad she couldn't scream right that moment, as Voldemort's cold gaze fell on her. If she started, she'd never stop. Never stop until she died, which she was sure wouldn't take long if Greyback claimed her. "Bella," Voldemort said, stroking one hand over Bellatrix' hair. She looked up to him with adoration. "What do you think, Bella? Should we give the wolf a new toy? He's gone through three already."

Bellatrix gave a long look to Greyback, her eyes narrowing in pretend thought. "It's a possibility," she said, her voice close to a purr. "But if we keep letting him have new toys, there won't be enough to go around for everyone else. Hardly fair, my Lord." She looked straight at Hermione, and smiled, her lips pulling back to show her teeth. "Why don't we give him one that's not worth very much?"

Hermione's shivers increased and she tightened her fingers until her knuckles went white. She couldn't pray any harder, but she tried, every cell in her body straining and desperate for relief, for escape. Greyback rolled up onto all fours and crawled towards her, licking his lips. "Mudblood," he crooned. "Little Mudblood. Why don't you come play with me? We could have some _fun_."

"My Lord."

The voice was low and shaking, but even as quiet as it was, it caused a ripple of silence to spread. Greyback stopped with one hand extended towards Hermione's face. Bellatrix sat up straight between Voldemort's feet. Voldemort himself stilled, his fingers locked on the arms of his throne. Hermione didn't dare to look around, didn't dare to move, but she recognized the voice. She recognized it only too well.

Black robes swirled at the corners of her vision as a Death Eater stepped up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She lowered her lashes to cover the movement of her eyes as she glanced at the fingers resting on her torn robes. Long fingers, thin and pale. Trembling. They squeezed her shoulder and it felt like a warning: _Play along._

"My Lord," Draco said again, and cleared his throat with a soft cough. "I request this one for myself."

Voldemort's forehead wrinkled as he raised a hairless brow. "Young Malfoy. After your poor showing with your mission, your utter _failure_ to destroy the old man, your pathetic weakness and inability to do so much as one simple task, you dare to present me with a _request_?"

Hermione held back a wince as Draco's hand tightened on her shoulder, his fingers digging into the hollow of her collarbone. "My Lord, if I may." He released her and stepped forward, his robes dragging against her side as he passed. He approached Voldemort's throne and lowered to one knee, the motion practiced and graceful. "My Lord, I have failed you. I have apologized and I will continue to apologize, as long as you wish. But please, my Lord. Had it not been for the traitor Snape's interference, my mission would have succeeded. Had it not been for my efforts to bring our brotherhood into Hogwarts, more missions would have failed. My family has offered you years of loyal service. For this, I request ... I request that you allow me to take the Mudblood." Voldemort looked bored and Draco's voice tightened. "Potter was my rival through school. We fought constantly. It would be the final touch to your victory if you were to give his best friend to his worst enemy."

He bowed his head and extended his left arm, palm up. Hermione couldn't see from her position, but she knew he'd displayed the Dark Mark burned into his skin. Voldemort made a soft noise and Hermione watched him pat Bellatrix' hair again. "What do you think, my dear? Give her to Greyback or to young Malfoy?"

"Her death would be quick at Greyback's hands, my Lord." Bellatrix spoke with relish, clearly pleased by the idea.

"Yes, that is true." Voldemort's voice sounded musing, thoughtful. He stared at the kneeling Draco, then fixed his red eyes on Hermione. "It would be a mercy to her, to give her to the wolf. I am not in the mood to be merciful."

Hermione held her breath as Voldemort raised a hand and made a dismissive, flicking gesture in Draco's direction. "You may have her." Draco started to raise his head and Voldemort snapped his fingers. Draco froze as Voldemort continued. "_However_. I find myself in need of some amusement. Rumor has it that this Mudblood is far more intelligent than most of her kind. Let us determine if that is accurate. Let us see if she can be trained. Young Malfoy, you may take the Mudblood. _If_ you can break her."

Hermione didn't need to see Draco's eyes to know that they'd widened. Bellatrix' wild laugh was enough to give away Draco's reaction. "My Lord, I doubt my nephew knows what to do with a girl, much less with one as rebellious as this. Give her to Greyback, let him destroy her, and let us be done with it."

Voldemort stroked Bellatrix' hair again, then wrapped his fingers in it and jerked her head back. Bellatrix keened, but with an edge of ecstasy to her pain. "I am granting his request, Bella. Young Malfoy may have the Mudblood, and he will break her to his will. To _my_ will. Should he fail at that, then Greyback will have _two_ presents. Dismissed, Malfoy."

Draco bowed from his kneeling position, his head almost touching his bent knee, then he stood and backed away from the throne. Another woman was wrenched from the line as Draco approached Hermione, but she couldn't spare any attention for the next victim. Her eyes were locked on Draco as he reached down and grabbed the chain linking her wrists together. He jerked her to her feet and dragged her from the hall.

Hermione, for the first time since Harry's death, felt a faint surge of hope. It was weak, it was buried under fear and worry, but it was there. Draco'd stepped forward and saved her. Again.

* * *

Draco dragged her through the halls of Hogwarts, his fingers wrapped tight around her shackles. Hermione staggered behind him, her legs weak and cramping from hours spent on her knees. She stumbled several times, and each time Draco hauled her to her feet again, wrenching her arms in their sockets and slicing the edges of her cuffs into her wrists. Hermione bit her lip to keep back the soft shrieks of pain that wanted to emerge despite the ache in her ravaged throat. She was out of the Hall, out of Voldemort's sight, away from the mass of Death Eaters and Greyback's slavering smile. She wouldn't do anything to distract Draco from taking her further away, no matter where he was choosing to take her.

They headed deeper into the bowels of the castle. Draco dragged her down stone corridors, pulled her through dark halls. They were moving into the dungeons, far beneath the surface, and as they passed room after room, thick oaken door after door, Hermione tried to block her ears against the screams she could hear. High-pitched, feminine screams for the most part, but interspersed were lower-voiced, masculine screams. Above them all were rolling, echoing bursts of laughter as Voldemort's servants played with their toys. Hermione wanted to weep for the friends she knew were dying, for the tortures and rapes she was passing, but she had no strength for anything but following Draco blindly. She had no tears left for herself, much less for those who were beyond saving.

Draco jerked her to a stop in front of a door and she sagged against the wall as he pulled his wand from his sleeve. He glanced at her, his brows knotted, then turned his attention to the door. He traced the tip of his wand over a carved sigil, muttering an incantation. She didn't catch the words of the spell over her own ragged breathing, and she was too exhausted to care. "Draco," she whispered, her mouth so dry the name caught on her lips. "Dra-Draco."

"Shut up." He pushed the door open and gripped her arm, shoving her into a dark room. Hermione tripped over the threshold and fell into a table. She dropped to the floor and gripped the table's leg, using it to keep herself upright as Draco flicked his wand and several lanterns flared.

"Draco."

"I said shut _up_, woman." Draco went to the door and Hermione saw him stiffen. He stepped out, and he greeted someone. Under the murmur of their talk was a low, repetitive sobbing, and Hermione felt bile rising up in her throat as she recognized Lavender's quiet pleas. Draco laughed, and Lavender's begging cut off with a shriek as the sound of a slap echoed in the stone corridor.

"You'll want a Shrinking spell on her cunt. Bitch was one of the biggest slags in school."

Draco's voice. Hermione bent over, gagging, nothing coming up but thin, brown liquid as the other man laughed even harder, the nasty sound fading when whoever it was dragged Lavender down the corridor. Draco stepped back into the room and shut the door. He cast another spell, and she recognized this one. Silencer. A powerful version of it. Clearly, he didn't want any noise escaping.

Hermione shook, clinging to the table as if it was all that kept her alive. He hadn't rescued her. He hadn't saved her. He'd spoken about Lavender just as if he were truly one of them, and he'd Silenced the room to keep his activities quiet, and she was alone with a Death Eater. Even the least of Voldemort's servants was a victor in the war, and she was his victim. The faint flicker of hope she'd felt as he'd taken her from the Hall faded and died. Hermione hung her head, staring at her torn robes and bruised wrists. "Please," she said, and her voice trembled. "Please, Draco. Whatever you're planning, do it quick. Get this over with, please."

"Oh, shut _up_." A length of cloth hit the floor in front of her, and Hermione blinked stupidly at the thin flannel as Draco crouched at her side. He pushed her hair back, his fingers spreading across her skull. She hissed, unable to stop the noise when he pressed on one of the cuts in her scalp. "Shut up. Clean up. I don't know what I'm planning, so be quiet while I think."

He shoved her away and stood, not even seeming to notice the difficulties she had in cleaning up her face and arms with her wrists still chained together. Hermione curled up next to the table, brushing the flannel across her body as best as she could, shifting the hems of her robes to dab at her knees and at her bruised feet. She concentrated on cleaning whatever she could reach, concentrated on brushing away flakes of dried blood and the sticky, tacky feel of evaporated sweat. She focused on that to avoid thinking about the nasty laugh she'd heard in Draco's voice when he spoke to the other Death Eater in the hall, to avoid thinking about what he might do to her. He'd taken her from the Hall, from Voldemort's presence. He'd claimed her and she had no way to save herself from him. Her wand had been snapped at her capture, the spells against Apparition were still in place. She couldn't escape. Whatever he wanted, she was his.

Hermione looked up at a noise. Draco had sprawled into a plushly upholstered chair close by, with a cut-glass tumbler of amber liquid in hand. He stared at the wall, ignoring her, but his lips moved slightly. Hermione thought he looked rather like he was talking to himself, possibly ... _I don't know what I'm planning_. She shuddered. He'd been creative in school. She was sure he would only be far more so here, where he was one of the ones in power, where he served the new master of Hogwarts. He could hurt her, and she couldn't do anything about it.

Hermione sniffed and brushed the flannel across her face, scrubbing her nose and mouth with it. That wasn't true. She knew Draco. She knew all about him, and one of the things she knew was that Draco liked to be fawned over, liked to have attention paid to him. He liked servility, he liked flattery. She wasn't particularly good at that, and she didn't particularly enjoy it, but there were a lot of things she would do to avoid more of the treatment she'd already received, to avoid any of the treatment she knew Parvati or Hannah or any of her friends were suffering. Of the evils in Hogwarts, Draco was the lesser.

Admittedly, as long as he was sitting there, staring into space and chewing on his thumbnail, he didn't look very evil. With his brow furrowed and his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, he looked the total opposite of evil. He looked ... lost. Almost scared. Hermione chewed on her lip, winced when she chewed on a scabbed over cut, then took as deep a breath as her aching back would allow. She moved slowly, carefully, stayed on her knees despite the pain in them. She shuffled towards Draco's chair, the flannel left crumpled on the floor near the table. The chains on her wrists clinked and Draco startled. Hermione held her breath as he clutched the empty glass to his chest and stared at her. His eyes were wide, too wide, the whites clearly visible around the grey.

Hermione edged a few inches closer, her brows knotting as Draco tensed. She stopped moving and settled back on her heels. "Draco," she said as quietly as she could manage, hoping to avoid more skittish tension from him, fearing an angry reaction, a lashed-out slap or curse. "Draco, could I.... Is there, um. Is there anything I can do for you?"

It didn't seem possible, but his eyes went even wider. Wilder. Hermione moved a little closer, her knees almost touching the side of Draco's chair. "You ... requested me. You asked for me. There must be something you want. Something I can do for you." She curled her fingers to relax them, as futile as the action was, then stretched to lay her hand on Draco's knee. Her heart raced with anxiety as Draco made a soft sound, but she forced herself to raise up and slide her hand up his leg, her fingers working over the folds in his robes as her other hand rested on the arm of the chair, the shackles keeping her hands only a foot apart. Draco's thigh was tight, practically solid under her palm, and the higher she moved, the more tension she felt in his leg. When she stretched her fingers out, angled for his groin, Draco dropped the tumbler over the side of the chair and grabbed her wrist with both hands.

"St-stop." His fingers locked around her wrist, shoving the iron cuff up her arm to scrape the already raw spots in her skin, and he stared down at her, his shoulders pressed to the back of the chair as if he could use his spine to burrow through it. "Stop. Don't ... don't touch me. I don't want anything, there's nothing you can _do_ for me. Just stop."

Hermione ignored the pain in her hand as she watched Draco's face. She'd been right, he looked lost and frightened. "But you requested me. From Volde--" She didn't get the name out before Draco's grip tightened and he hissed in warning. Hermione closed her eyes and nodded once. Not even his own servants dared to refer to Voldemort by name. Only Dumbledore's followers, the broken army. "From He-Who.... From the Dark Lord. You asked for me. I assumed that meant you had something in mind for me."

Draco made a strange noise, a sound that was almost a laugh but was flat and emotionless. "I did. I assumed he'd refuse me. I was hoping he would." He took both her hands in his and looked down, but his eyes were unfocused, unseeing. "I thought he might kill you just because I wanted you. Thought it was the only favor I could do for you."

Hermione held still, almost afraid to breathe as long as Draco's hands were locked on hers. She could nearly feel the weight of what he'd said pressing down on her. He _had_ been saving her, in a way. It wasn't the most logical move in the world - or it wouldn't seem so for anyone who hadn't seen the way Voldemort operated, the way the Death Eaters were treating their captives. Greyback's wriggling, laughing form flashed through her memory, accompanied by the echo of "three toys", and Hermione shuddered. Draco had thought his actions might get her killed, and it might actually have been the best thing for her. Certainly better than letting any of the other men get their hands on her. "Thank you," she finally whispered.

Draco didn't move for several seconds, then he released her hands with a spasm of his fingers. "Don't thank me." His voice sounded empty. "All I did was postpone the inevitable. And made things tougher for me in the process." He stood, his robes smacking her face as he moved away to pace the room. "Break you. I have to _break_ you, or he's feeding us both to the goddamn werewolf. Fantastic. Fantastic bollocks. This is all _shit_, Granger. This is all just shit. I can't do this, this isn't...." He stopped with his back to her, his head bowed. He took a breath, deep, slow, and loud, then turned to face her. His expression was blank, his eyes hooded.

He looked at her, really looked at her, and over the next several seconds of eternity, his face twisted from blank to horrified. "You look like hell. What did they do to you?" He stepped closer, crouched in front of her. "What did they do?"

Hermione's mind raced. The flight from the castle, the capture, the three days spent locked in a cage made of magical lightning as the Snatchers dragged their captives back to Voldemort. The nights without sleep, the screaming and crying of her friends. The aching, throat-choking desperation as the reality of Harry's death sank into her bones. Seamus, his head on her lap, breathing blood from a punctured lung until the last bubbling rattle stopped and his eyes dimmed. Hermione opened her mouth to tell Draco the answer to his question, and she burst into tears.

She curled over on herself, her matted hair falling around her face, and she sobbed, everything finally breaking. Her will, her spirit, her heart. It all felt as though it were shattering, and Hermione wept. Her body shook, releasing fear and worry, shook and trembled and quivered, and she didn't know when she stopped crying, didn't know when Draco had taken her into his arms. "Yeah," she heard him mutter. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

* * *

She felt warm. Comfortable. She didn't want to wake, didn't want to open her eyes. Either she was dreaming or she was dead, but she didn't want to ruin it. She stretched, whimpering as her body ached, her collection of cuts and bruises pulling at her flesh. Something tightened around her waist as she moved, something warm and heavy. Hermione twitched her fingers, felt at her waist. An elbow, a wrist, an arm slung over her body in sleep. For a heartbeat, for just one moment, Hermione felt a rush of hope. _Ron_?

She opened her eyes and glanced down, praying for a stocky arm with a layer of fine red hairs. Hope faded. The arm she saw was thin, corded and ropy, with hair so pale it was nearly invisible. The arm twitched, shifted, and the underside came into view. Pale, pale skin with a dark and twisted tattoo. Hermione held her breath, the night coming back to her memory.

Draco had held her through her weeping, waited for it to end, then lifted her to her feet and silently removed the shackles on her wrists. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of her hair and skin, the dried blood and caked-on dirt she felt smothered by, and he shoved her through a door. Hermione had trembled, thinking he was putting her into another cage, but it was a bathroom. She glanced at Draco, knowing her expression was a mix of bewilderment and fear, and he rolled his eyes with a shake of his head. "Clean up," was all he said to her before he shut the door.

She'd done her best, even though the simple, automatic movements to wash made her joints ache, even though the water that drained from the tub was a deep, dirty pink by the time she finished. Hermione stood in front of the mirror to dry, her skin too raw and bruised to accept much more. The reflection in the mirror didn't seem to be her. Hollow cheeks, bruised and exhausted eyes, lips split and scabbed. Her collarbones protruded, her throat bore the handprint of her original captor still, and her hair was so tangled that she feared she'd need to cut it off. No wonder Draco had looked at her with such horror.

He'd left a black dress for her, too big at the chest and too short at the hem, but it was warm and it was clean, and she pulled it on with gratitude. She left the bathroom and stopped a foot from the door, clutching the sleeves of her dress as she hugged herself tight. Draco glanced at her from the table as he set a bowl of thick, steaming soup down. A house-elf with a missing ear handed him a spoon and disappeared with a pop when he snapped his fingers. Draco pointed to the bowl. "Eat. Slowly. I'm not cleaning up after you if you sick it all up again."

Hermione had taken a seat, body quivering in confusion. A bath, food, a tall glass of milk. Hermione didn't want to wonder why Draco was treating her to these little luxuries. Maybe he was just a little more fastidious then the other Death Eaters, couldn't bring himself to play with a dirty, broken toy. Maybe he was just cleaning her up for his own pleasures later. The thought made her shudder and drop her spoon into the bowl, spilling soup onto the table. "I'm sorry," she said, bolting up from her chair. "I'm sorry! I'll clean it up, just give me, just...." She saw the flannel she'd abandoned on the floor and she snatched it up, rubbing the table in frantic, swooping circles. He didn't want to clean up after her, he'd just said that, and now she'd made a mess, and he was going to be _angry_. She didn't realize she was muttering a litany of no, no, no, please, sorry, no, until Draco touched her shoulder. She shrieked and jerked away from the table, slammed her shoulders into the wall and covered her head.

"I'm not going to _beat_ you, Granger." Draco had folded his arms over his chest when she peeked out between her arms. He looked exasperated, disgusted, and Hermione had to fight with her frightened self, the self that had taken a few beatings over the course of her capture, the self that wanted to drop at Draco's feet and beg him not to hurt her again. He _hadn't_ hurt her. Not yet. Draco moved away from the table to a cabinet in a corner of the room, then came back with a parchment and quill. He sat and started writing, ignoring her, and Hermione warily sat down again to finish her soup. She ate with care, pausing between bites to make sure her body was willing to accept the nourishment. She remembered reading about starvation victims and how their bodies would often reject food, make them violently ill if they ate too much or too quickly. She hadn't eaten more than a slice of bread since her capture, and she didn't know when Draco would feed her again. She had to keep this soup in her system.

Most of her meal had passed in silence, no sounds except the clink of dishes and Draco's quill scratching on parchment. She stifled her curiosity about what he was writing - interrupting him, drawing attention to herself? Not smart, she thought. She wiped her finger on the inside of her bowl, scraping up the last few drops to lick them away, then folded her hands in her lap and sat without moving for several minutes. She watched Draco from under her lashes, watched his quill moving, then abruptly felt a stinging pain in her forehead. Sleep had caught up to her, drooping her onto the table, and she sat up with a gasp, her heart pounding. He hadn't told her that she could sleep. Her body tightened, expecting a blow.

None had come. Draco looked up from his parchment, then tossed the quill aside and rubbed his forehead. "Right," he muttered. "You're probably exhausted. Doubt the bastards let you have a second of rest. Tired, myself. Long day and more to come." He stood, his chair scraping on the stone floor, and went to pull a heavy curtain away from the alcove it was hiding. He loosened his robes, then passed behind Hermione with a tap on her shoulder. "Bed."

She'd sat, frozen, as he hung his robes on a wooden rack fastened to the wall and headed back to the alcove in nothing but loose trousers. Hermione held her breath, hardly even noticing the long scar that crossed Draco's torso and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. This was it, she thought, and she shuddered. He'd cleaned her up, he'd fed her, and now it was time for him to play. He was just like the others, and what had she expected? He was a Death Eater; she was the captive. She was the toy.

Draco had made a flippant gesture towards the alcove then gone to pour himself another drink. "Bed," he said again, and Hermione sat still. Shaking. Body shaking, head shaking.

"No," she had said, her voice breaking. "No, Draco, please." The nerve she'd had earlier, the determination to do whatever he asked so that he would stay happy, disappeared with the reality of a bed, empty and waiting. Draco looked at her and Hermione shook harder. "Draco, please. Please, I can't...." She shoved away from the table, staggered back with the sleeves of her dress clenched in both hands. "No. No, no, no."

Draco had stared at her for several moments, then stomped forward with a huff. He grabbed her arms and Hermione screamed, the pain in her throat adding to the rattle of her scream. She struggled and fought as Draco hauled her across the room and shoved her into the bed, his strength as surprising as it was frightening. When Hermione hit the mattress, she stiffened, heart pounding until she thought it was about to burst. Her mind raced in so many directions that her body stopped responding to her desperate demands to fight, and she lay there, waiting for the next thing she felt to be Draco's weight on her.

It hadn't come. She held still except for her frantic breathing, and Draco did nothing but look at her as he finished off his drink. He approached the alcove and looked down at her as she pressed into the corner of the bed, moving as far from him as she could get. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said as he turned back the blanket and sat on the edge of the mattress. Hermione curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. Draco stretched out on the bed, his back to her. "Sleep if you can," he mumbled.

Hermione had thought, just for one moment, of waiting for Draco to fall asleep and then taking some sort of action, stealing his wand, breaking out of the room, but he rolled onto his stomach and sighed sleepily. "Not happy about this either, Granger. You didn't have to fight that hard. I'm not going to hurt you, but if anyone decides to get suspicious, I need evidence that I wasn't the only one in this bed. Get out if you want, but I can guarantee you that the floor is a great deal colder."

She'd thought about that for a few moments, looking for something to protest, but every scenario she pictured only resulted in her imagining what would happen if the other Death Eaters determined that Draco had let her eat and bathe, that he hadn't laid a hand on her once he'd taken her out of their sight. Draco didn't seem to need to look at her to know that she'd acknowledged his argument. He made a quiet sound that was close to a laugh. "And don't try anything," he said, his voice drawling. "You're safe here, but if you set a foot out of the room, the others will get their hands on you. I doubt _very_ much you want that." Hermione stared at the back of his head and curled in tighter on herself, accepting his words with reluctance. The lesser evil.

She must have fallen asleep eventually, because now she was waking up with Draco's arm around her, the blanket tugged up to their shoulders, his body pressed to hers. Hermione knew she should be horrified, should be frightened and worried, but all she could feel was relief. She'd lived through the night in more comfort and warmth than she'd had in weeks, with a thick blanket and a full stomach. There were many more terrible ways her night could have gone, many more terrifying things that could have happened, and in the scheme of things, in the balance of food and a bath, sleeping in Draco's bed was a small, _small_ price to pay. Other than the way he'd held on to her in what was clearly an unconscious, sleeping movement, he hadn't done anything to her. None of the things she'd feared, none of the things her friends were suffering.

Hermione shut her eyes and tugged the blanket up to her chin. Maybe he was waiting, maybe it would all come later. She expected a beating at the least, rape and death at the worst, but it hadn't come yet. Draco hadn't hurt her yet.

* * *

She had no idea how long she slept, what time it was when her eyes opened again, but she couldn't bring herself, right that moment, to worry about it. To even think about it. In her sleep, she'd rolled, twisted around, and the sight in front of her eyes wasn't the dark wall of the alcove. It was the pale, scarred chest of Draco Malfoy. His collarbones stuck out almost as sharply as hers, the lines of his ribs were as rounded and evident as sticks under snow. He was nearly as skinny as if _he'd_ been the one on the run, fleeing for his life, and Hermione bit her lip, feeling a touch of sympathy for him.

She rolled her head to glance up at his face. In sleep, his expression was relaxed, his lashes resting on his cheek. Hermione thought it was a little unfair that his lashes were so long, that the skin on his lids was so fine and translucent. She remembered what his eyes looked like, the grey of his irises. They could shift from pale to deep, from the lightest of storm clouds to the darkest of shadows. Even in his ugliest moments, he had beautiful eyes. She looked at him for a little while, just looked at him, then his closed lids shuddered and the skin around his eyes tightened.

Hermione held her breath, watching his face. His lips fit together, thinned out and whitened with pressure. Some sort of sound came from deep in his throat, something quiet and nervous, like an animal trapped in a corner. Before she realized it, Hermione had wriggled one arm up from under the blanket and laid her hand against his cheek. The lightest prickle of stubble brushed her hand, and under her palm his skin was cold. Draco twitched, his arm over her waist tightened, and that soft sound came again. His lids flickered and Hermione watched him, her mind spinning. Draco made that sound again, and she realized it wasn't just a sound. It was a word. A stifled, trapped word.

_No_.

His lips moved, mouthing the word over and over. Hermione stroked his cheek, drew her fingers down the line of his jaw, felt his pulse. It was pounding, racing as his face twisted up and he said that silent word again. _No, no._ His hand splayed across her back, his fingers tensed against her spine. She felt his legs trembling against hers and she realized he was having a nightmare. Breath catching in her throat, Hermione thought frantically. Should she wake him, should she let it run its course? She didn't know what was the best option, didn't know enough about Draco to know what to do. She patted his cheek gently, pushed his fringe out of his eyes. "Draco," she whispered, afraid to raise her voice in case he incorporated it into his nightmare and pulled her into his fears. "Draco, wake up. You're dreaming. Draco, wake up."

She whispered his name over and over, patting his hair and stroking his arm. Draco kept saying _no_, but he switched from mouthing it silently to murmuring it. His voice stayed quiet, but Hermione noted the tension in his body, the tautness of the tendons in his neck. The harsh and scratchy tone of the sounds he managed to make. Despite the low volume, Hermione suspected he was screaming. Draco's breathing increased, became close to panting, and he spoke a little louder. "No."

Draco's body shuddered and he jerked Hermione closer. Her head fit under his chin, her arm was trapped between their chests, and his hips.... Hermione's eyes widened and she bit her lip. Draco had an erection, a very obvious one. She twisted her arm to place her hand on his chest, to push him away, but then he sucked in a deep breath, nearly a sob. "Fenrir, _no_."

Hermione froze. Draco's fear of werewolves had been an open secret. Everyone at Hogwarts who knew the slightest thing about him knew that he was terrified of them, couldn't stand to be anywhere near them. She'd been grateful that he hadn't known about Remus, or he'd have gone screaming to his father within the first month of school that year. She'd never really known the _reason_ behind his fear, but if the sick horror in his voice when he said Greyback's name was anything to judge by, Draco had a very good reason to be afraid. Hermione shuddered, remembering the rumors that had circled about Fenrir Greyback, about that werewolf's delight in biting, killing children. Draco's father had been a Death Eater for a very long time, and the Death Eaters had connections with Greyback's pack, going years back. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that Remus wasn't the first werewolf with whom Draco had been in personal contact.

Hermione twisted to tip her head back and look at Draco's face. The tears leaking from under his squeezed-shut lids made her heart stutter. She didn't want to know _why_ he was so frightened, why this nightmare was hitting him, why he was breathing rough and his cock was hard against her hip. She didn't need to know. She wriggled to wrap her arm around him and shifted her legs to lock them in his. She laid her forehead against his chest and held on tight. "I'm here, Draco. It's all right." She murmured to him, shushing him, trying to calm him. "It's all right. I'm here."

Draco didn't relax, his breathing didn't ease, until Hermione started humming a lullaby, an old song she remembered from her grandmother's twice-annual babysitting visits while her parents were on holiday. Hermione hummed, her face tipped up to Draco's neck, her lips resting against the tension in his throat. She hummed, she stroked Draco's side, and it took a long time for it to work, but it worked. He relaxed, he stopped whimpering, and he breathed easily. The pounding of his pulse slowed and his muscles slackened. Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes, holding onto him as they both slid into a full, exhausted sleep.

* * *

Draco was gone when she woke up again, and Hermione sat up slowly, the blanket held to her chest. She held still, ran a mental check over her body. Except for the aches and pains she'd had before, there was nothing wrong, nothing unusual to note. Breasts, thighs, groin, nothing hurt. She tipped her head back and sighed, relieved. She'd thought, for just a moment, that he might have touched her, assaulted her in her sleep, but everything seemed fine. Hermione acknowledged that it was _possible_ he'd Stupefied her, Obliviated her, but she didn't think so. She didn't think that he would have had the energy for it, considering the nightmare.

She didn't think Draco was that sort of man, regardless. Not after he'd fed her, given her clean clothes. He had some sort of plan in mind, she thought, or maybe no plan at all, but she was convinced that whatever it was, it _wasn't_ the same treatment that the other Death Eaters were giving their captives.

Hermione crawled out of the alcove, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the room. Bare feet on bare stones made her shiver, and she looked around until she found a pair of Draco's boots kicked into the corner. She pulled them on, trying not to giggle at the discovery that they were easily four sizes too big, then clomped to the bathroom. When she emerged, bladder emptied and teeth scrubbed with warm water and a finger, she found a bowl of cold oatmeal on the table, a square of parchment next to the spoon.

_Granger,  
Room's locked, don't try to leave. Eat if you're hungry. Rest up. I don't know when I'll be back. _

Don't try to leave.  
Malfoy

She ate the oatmeal and read Draco's note a dozen times. As much as it seemed like an order, she suspected it was entirely different. It was a warning. A warning she didn't need. With the screams she'd heard as he brought her to the room, with the Death Eaters and werewolves roaming the halls of what used to be her school, there was no chance she was leaving the room without Draco's presence. He'd kept her safe through the night; she wasn't going to give them any excuse or opportunity to take that safety away.

She had no way to measure the passage of time, but it felt like hours before Draco came back. She took four baths, soaking and scrubbing away from her skin and hair as much of the caked-on dirt and blood as she could. She washed her breakfast bowl and spoon in the sink, let them dry, and washed them again for lack of anything else to do. She made the bed, soaped up the flannel and washed the table, cleaned Draco's glass from the night before. She tried to open the bottle he'd been drinking from, a bottle of what looked like whiskey, but it had some sort of magical seal on it. The mirror in the bathroom was firmly fixed to the wall, the hook he'd put his robes on was permanently stuck in place. There was nothing in the room that she could use as a weapon. Draco wasn't a fool, unfortunately.

When he finally returned, she was sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed and the hem of her dress stretched to tug down over her knees. Draco stumbled in, breathing hard, and dropped a mask onto the table. Hermione's mouth, opening to speak to him, opened even further. No sound emerged, despite her sudden, intense desire to scream. The mask. The _mask_. A Death Eater's mask. Hiding his face, hiding his identity. Hermione couldn't think of the reason for it. The Death Eaters had won the war. There was no need for him to hide behind a disguise. Her brain, desperate to figure out the reason, forced a squeak out of her unwilling throat. Draco turned to her.

Hermione's jaw snapped shut. Draco's face was almost as empty and cold as the mask itself, except for the smear of blood across his forehead. There was more on his throat, and even more on his hands. She squeaked again, staring at his hands. Draco looked down, his fingers flexing. He took a deep breath, his eyes widened, and he bolted for the bathroom. Hermione expected to hear water running, expected to hear him washing his hands and face, but the sound she heard, muffled by the thick door, was the sound of retching. Deep, guttural retching.

It was several minutes before the sound stopped. Hermione stayed curled up in the bed, her arms wrapped around her upraised knees, as water pounded into the bath. She waited until Draco came out, his hair slicked back against his skull and his skin even paler than normal. "Are you all right?" she asked, almost afraid to speak, more afraid to hear the answer.

Draco glanced at her and shook his head, then grabbed the bottle and unsealed the top to pour his glass full. "Fine," he muttered, the flatness of his voice and the tremble in his hand proving the word to be a lie. His brows furrowed as he looked around the room, at the scrubbed table and neatened cupboard. "You _cleaned_?" he asked her, the smallest touch of wry amusement in his tone.

"I ... I didn't have anything else to do," she admitted, latching onto the banality of the question in order to avoid thinking about the blood he'd washed away, the wretched sound of his vomiting, and the mask still resting on the table. "There's only so many baths a person can take."

"Good point." Draco drained the glass and poured another, then settled into the upholstered chair. "I'll try to get a couple of books for you. No promises, though."

Hermione tugged at her dress hem, stretching the material as much as she could to cover her legs, then wrapped her arms around her knees again. "Why?" Draco looked at her and she ducked her head. When he didn't speak, she cleared her throat and looked up again. "Why would you bother? Why did you bother at all?" The confusion and worry of the day and the night before all bubbled up and out in a waterfall of questions. "Why feed me, why let me have baths? Why give me a clean dress? Draco, I don't _get_ it. You're a Death Eater, I'm your-your-your prisoner. Your captive. For all intents and purposes, I belong to you. Vold-You-know.... Dammit. The Dark Lord, he _gave_ me to you. Like some sort of present. You can do whatever you want to me, I can't do a damn thing to stop it, and all you've done is given me a couple of meals and a warm place to sleep? If you're trying to discover some new form of torture by being _nice_ to me, it's working!"

Draco stared at her through the barrage of speech, moving only enough to sip at his drink. "Granger," he said, once she'd careened to a halt. "You're my prisoner. I'm a Death Eater. This is true." He closed his eyes and took a long drink, head tipped back and Adam's apple moving as he swallowed. "And you have no idea how much I'd give to make it untrue. I don't want you here. I don't want to _be_ here."

Hermione watched Draco for a little while, watched him drink in silence, watched him press the glass to his chest, his fingers prodding at his robes in the spot where she knew a scar stretched across his body. His breathing seemed uneven and ragged, like he was in pain. She remembered the incident in their sixth year, the attack in the bathroom, the _Sectumsempra_ Harry had told her about. He'd nearly killed Draco by accident, and hadn't seemed all that upset by it. Watching Draco, she guessed that it still hurt, that the Dark curse hadn't healed entirely, and she felt a tiny bit of anger towards Harry for hurting the man who was her only chance at staying safe here in the castle. She felt a lot more anger towards Harry for dying. He'd been their hope, and now there wasn't any, except for Draco.

Hermione got up, slowly, and tucked her feet into Draco's spare boots again to shuffle across the floor to his chair. She stood next to him, waiting for him to look up, but he stared at the wall without moving. "Draco," she said quietly. "Why do you have a mask?"

His hand tightened around his glass, his skin tightened around his eyes. Draco pressed his lips together until they went white, and he shook his head, refusing to answer.

"Why are you being nice to me?"

He still didn't answer, didn't move, until a scratching sound came from the door leading into the corridor. Draco drained his glass and dropped it in the same movement, then reached up and grabbed Hermione's arm. He jerked her into his lap, yanked her legs up over the arm of the chair. One hand wrapped in her hair, pulling her head back, and the other shoved at the hem of her dress, pushing it up to her hip. His fingers clamped on her thigh and he bent to her neck. The sequence of events was so abrupt, so sudden that Hermione couldn't protest, couldn't do anything but stiffen when Draco's lips found her pulse. He licked her skin, fastened his mouth over her heartbeat to suck at her throat. Hermione's breath shuddered, and the door flung open.

Her gaze shot to the door where a tall man stood on the threshold, a tall man in dark, Death Eater robes. Rowle? The name fluttered through Hermione's mind as Draco lifted his head and his hand slid over her leg to rest on her inner thigh. "Rowle," Draco said, confirming her thoughts, and his face hardened. "Do you _mind_?"

Rowle stared at them, at Hermione sprawled over Draco's lap, at her dress rucked up to her hips with only her position and Draco's sleeve keeping her body from exposure. "Surprising," Rowle said, his voice almost a growl. "Thought you didn't have it in you, Malfoy."

Draco was trembling under her, but his words emerged in a casual, indifferent drawl. "Yeah, I do. And I was about to have it in _her_, so get the fuck out. You have your own toy. This one's mine." His fingers tugged at Hermione's hair, pulling her head back with enough force to make her squeak and squirm.

Rowle watched them for a minute, his expression suspicious, watched until Draco bent to her throat again, biting down on the side of her neck until she shrieked with pain. Rowle's expression cleared, and he sniggered. "Have fun," he said in a sing-song, then shut the door. Draco sucked at her throat for a few more seconds, and Hermione held her breath, both of them waiting for Rowle to shove the door open again. When that didn't happen, Draco released her, pushed her off his lap with a grunt that covered up her squeal of aching protest.

"Sorry," he muttered, leaning over the chair to snatch up his glass, and stood to move to the cabinet and refill it. He downed the whiskey in three long swallows and thumped the glass on the cabinet before going to lock the door, cursing himself in a low voice for not having done that sooner. "I'm sorry, Granger. Like I said, I need evidence. He'd report me in a heartbeat. Never has forgotten that little torture incident."

Hermione got to her feet, careful not to jar herself, stifling a whimper as a couple of her older bruises let her know that she'd reinjured them. The deep contrast between Draco's behavior in private and his actions when the other Death Eaters could see him was spinning in her mind, and she applied that to what he'd said the day before, when he'd brought her to the room and spoken to the Death Eater in the hall about Lavender. Draco had always been a good actor, in school, and his skills were much improved now. Especially now, with life and death on the scales. "I understand," she told him, her voice low. "You need to look good for them. It's ... it's all right, Draco."

He snorted, shaking his head and shrugging off his robes. They went onto the hook on the wall and he stretched, his back to her. Hermione watched the roll of lean muscles across his shoulders as he moved and spoke. "It's not all right, Granger. It's just what has to be done. Survival."

"I understand," she said again, tugging the sleeves of her dress down and adjusting the hem as low as she could get it. She could still feel his hand on her thighs, the chill and quiver in his fingers. They were both willing to do what it took to survive. She was willing to behave herself for Draco's sake; he was willing to misbehave for the Death Eater's observations. Whatever it took. "Whatever it takes, Draco. I ... I know what the others are probably doing to their ... toys. I know you're _not_ doing any of that to me. I don't know why, but you have to pretend. For them. I understand that. I can...." She took a deep breath, decision made. If it kept her safe, if it kept Draco out of trouble enough to keep her safe longer, she was willing. "I can play along for you."

Draco turned to look at her, and his gaze went straight to her neck, to the aching spot where he'd bit her. "Don't be an idiot." He went to the table and picked up his mask, his movements jerky and uneven. He put the mask in the cupboard next to his stack of parchments. "You don't have to play this little game. I do."

"I don't have to play. But if I don't, you'll get caught. You'll get punished." Her voice started to shake and she stared at the floor. "And they'll take me away from you and give me to someone who won't treat me with even the slightest modicum of kindness. Won't feed me, won't let me sleep in a bed. They'll give me to someone who'll beat me, rape me, and kill me, and I will _not_ let that happen, Draco." When she looked up again, Draco's face was blurred and watery behind the tears she fought to hold back. "I'll do anything to play along, as long as it means I can stay with the one person who's shown me any niceties at all."

Draco stared at her in silence for a long moment, then he sighed and nodded. "Fine. I'll ... I'll see what we can do. It might work." He rubbed his forehead and the bridge of his nose, looking tired. "Can't think anymore tonight. I'm going to bed." He moved to the alcove and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Join me. Might as well get started now."

* * *

The pattern didn't change much for the next several days. Draco left before she woke and locked her in the room. She spent hours alone, reading and rereading the one book he'd managed to smuggle into the room for her, taking long baths that let her battered skin start to heal. The little house-elf with the missing ear brought her a bowl of oats or a cold sandwich, a glass of milk or juice. Draco came back late, sometimes with blood on his hands, sometimes with his robes stinking of smoke. He hid in the bathroom and threw up for several minutes while she waited, wringing her hands and staring at the mask he flung on the table. She ate in silence; he wrote on a parchment and drank his whiskey. He folded up the parchment and sealed it with a tap of his wand, anything he'd written locked away from her view. He took a shower, they went to bed, and she slept with Draco's arm around her. No questions on her part, no answers on his.

A few times, one of the Death Eaters knocked on the door to make conversation with Draco in an excuse to check up on them. Rowle, Avery, Nott. Draco would touch her as soon as the noise came in the corridor - pull her into his lap, slide his hand up her thigh and under her dress, push her against the wall and suck on her throat. Hermione acted her part, wriggled and protested, pretended to fight. It seemed to be working, at least well enough that no one bothered them, no one gave Draco trouble. No one came to take her away.

Then the pattern changed. Draco came back to the room much earlier than usual, with a canvas satchel over his shoulder. He set the satchel down on the table - it clinked and rattled - and ignored the whiskey. Hermione sat in the middle of the bed, picking at a thread on her sleeve and watching Draco with her heart racing. He put his mask away, stood with his back to her for a long minute, then turned to look at her. Hermione winced at his expression. It was flat and empty, except for the tension around his eyes. She chewed on her lip, wanting to ask him questions, wanting to know why their routine had altered, but afraid to know, scared to wonder.

She didn't have to wonder long. Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to the satchel. He opened it and drew out a long length of chain with a collar attached to the end. Hermione scrabbled backwards on the bed, fetching up against the wall of the alcove. She heard a soft, whimpering sound, a tiny noise of denial and protest, and it took Draco's expression tightening for her to realize that it was her. "No. Draco, no. I've behaved, I've been good. You don't have to chain me, I haven't done anything wrong! I've played the game. I've played along. Draco, _please_."

"Granger." Draco sighed and held the collar out, his hand trembling so much that the chain rattled. "He wants to see you. Wants to check on my _progress_." He almost spat the word and he shook the collar at her. "I don't want to do this either, but it's this or ... or something worse. I _really_ do not want to know what he'll think of if I refuse this. Or fail at it."

Hermione pressed her lips together to stop the whimpering sound, her eyes locked on Draco's shaking hand and the thick leather collar. She remembered the line of women in the hall, remembered Macnair hauling Hannah away. "Draco...." She bowed her head and wrapped her arms around her torso, fighting with herself. She'd promised to play along. She'd promised to do whatever it took, as long as he kept her safe. If he was doing this, if he was taking her somewhere to see the Dark Lord - she'd stopped even _thinking_ of him by name, only by title - then it was the only option. It had to be.

"I'm sorry, Hermione."

She brought her head up, staring at Draco. In all the time she'd been there, locked in that room, captive to him and to her own desire for protection and safety in the face of the horrors that waited outside at the hands of the Death Eaters, not once had he called her by her first name. Not once. Somehow, the sound of it made it clear how serious he was. She slowly uncurled and crawled off the bed, mincing towards him with her hands twisted together. Draco exhaled, his shoulders loosening visibly, and when she stood in front of him, he fastened the collar around her neck.

"If you can look like you're completely under my control," he told her, moving her hair out from under the collar and adjusting the buckle to keep it from pressing into the soft skin at her throat, "if you can act thoroughly docile, then we can go just like this. But I'll warn you now, you're going to see a lot of things that ... well, they're not pleasant. I know you think this room is a cage, but it's a paradise compared to what some of the others have. Some of your friends. I can't have you scared and I can't have you ... having fits or whatever, at anything you see. If you think for even a second that you might break cover, then I need to know now." He cupped her cheek and she held still, hardly breathing in surprise. His hand was chilled against her cheek, but she leaned into it anyway, fear of what she might see driving her to seek comfort in what had become familiar, in him. "I need to know, Hermione."

She closed her eyes and moved her head, shaking it just enough to make the gesture evident, but not enough to pull away from his touch. She didn't need his warnings to know that anything they might see out in the castle would have to be horrifying. She knew she was the equivalent of a pampered pet, compared to what her friends had to have been going through, were still going through. If any of them were still alive.

As much as she felt sick at the idea that her friends, her classmates, her co-conspirators were most likely beaten, raped, or murdered, she felt guilty that she was none of those, that Draco had been keeping her safe and secure in comparison. If she saw her friends, saw the treatment they'd received, would she be able to stay calm? Would she be able to restrain the overwhelming guilt at her own health and safety if she saw them? Would she scream, would she cry, would she throw herself at them and beg for forgiveness, demand to be allowed to join them in some useless, futile grasp at solidarity and wasteful self-sacrifice? She didn't know. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her throat dry, the words cracking. "I'm sorry, Draco. I don't know. I don't know what I might do, I can't predict that. I don't know if I can play along."

Draco's hand slipped off her cheek and down to the collar around her throat. His fingers trailed down the chain to his side, then slipped into his robe sleeve. "That's what I thought," he murmured, and brought his wand up to her face. "I'm sorry, Hermione. _Imperio_."

* * *

She couldn't feel anything. It was as though someone had wrapped her up in cotton wadding and taped it down, with scrupulous, precise attention to each finger, each toe. Careful to pack the cotton into her nostrils and her ear canals, even to spread out a thin layer of it across her eyes. She could still hear, she could still see, but nothing she saw or heard meant anything to her. It had gone beyond the feeling of a dream, gone into a hallucination, a haze. As Draco led her through the corridors of Hogwarts, led her up from the dungeons, she followed at the end of the chain with nothing but a slight sense of bemusement.

Nothing bothered her. Not the rank smell in the corridors, the smell of sweat, shit, and fear. Not the dark splotches on the walls that spoke of blood and more splattered across the stones. Not the rooms they passed where open doors let the sounds of hoarse screaming, or worse, weak and thready sobbing, float out into the halls. None of it touched her. She spread her hands across the sleeves of her dress, stroked them down the length of the chain attached to the collar around her throat, smiling to herself at the rough chill of the metal. It felt like Draco's hands to her, like the feel of his palms on her arm or thigh when he wrapped around her in his sleep or prodded her into a mock-struggle every time another Death Eater came into their room. It was familiar, almost comforting.

She should be shocked by how familiar it was to her. How comforting it was. The passage of time was almost impossible for her to determine, but she thought it couldn't have been more than a week, and yet it was all routine to her. Normal. That should be frightening to her, but right that moment, right then, nothing at all frightened her. Almost nothing. The only thing that frightened her at all was the idea that she might disobey Draco. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it was the Imperius that was leading her to think that way, but she couldn't bring herself to care. The cotton wadding around her senses and around her thoughts kept her calm. Draco's orders.

His only order. "Stay calm."

As they passed a door, a low-voiced moan reached her. Hermione turned her head, so slowly that she was almost out of range of the door before the interior of the room came into her line of sight. On the floor, stretched out on her stomach with one hand extended towards the door, lay Parvati. Hermione thought it was Parvati; it might have been Padma. It might have been just about anyone. It was difficult to tell. The woman's hair was shorn down to nothing, with bare, bloody patches on her scalp. Her eyes were swollen shut, the skin around them almost as dark and puffy as her lips. The fingers that reached for the door were crooked, uneven. Broken. Bruises and cuts covered her naked body, peeking out from under the layer of blood and semen that coated her skin. Hermione stared, her head tipped in bewildered observation. What had that woman done to displease her Death Eater? Why had she misbehaved so much that he'd had to beat her?

Draco never beat _her_. Draco hardly touched her. Poor Parvati, Hermione thought, shaking her head without feeling the collar scrape at her throat. Poor Parvati. She should have played the game. She should have played along.

The chain jerked taut and Hermione stumbled, then glanced ahead to see Draco looking at her with his eyes narrowed. "Parvati," she said, her voice slow and drawling, but with a lilt to the end. She blinked, several times, her vision starting to sharpen. She said the name again, and her voice trembled. "Parvati."

Draco nodded and stepped closer to her, putting slack back into the chain. "It doesn't matter." His voice came to her with soft, rolling echoes, muffled through the haze around her senses. He touched her cheek, stroked his thumb under the curve of her lower lip. "It doesn't matter, Granger. Stay calm."

Calm. Of course. She would stay calm, and Draco would stay happy. Everything was that simple. She smiled at him, at his sharp cheekbones and pointed nose, at his storm-cloud eyes. Two steps down the corridor with him, and she forgot about the woman in the room. Calm. For Draco.

He led her up to doors she vaguely recognized, doors that she was almost sure led into a large hall. Draco stopped her and gripped her shoulder, turning her to face him. "Granger, listen carefully."

Hermione listened, straining every muscle in her head to listen because Draco wanted her to.

"We're going to go into the hall. We'll go up to the front to greet my Lord. I'll kneel. You'll kneel. You _will_ show respect. Do not speak unless he asks you a question specifically. Do not take any instructions or directions unless I give them." He tucked the chain in the crook of his elbow and brought both hands up to cup her face. "You will stay calm, and you will _not_ give any indication that you are anything more or less than my captive. My toy. Act like a proper little captive, and we'll get out of this alive. Give him the show he wants, and I'll keep you safe. Do you understand?"

Hermione nodded. Of course. It really wasn't necessary for him to be so emphatic. His requests were completely reasonable, completely understandable. Of course she'd obey. A tiny little voice in her head tried to shout at her, tried to tell her to wake up, but then Draco's eyes flickered to the door. He leaned forward and kissed her, whispered against her mouth. "Stay calm."

Draco pushed open the door to the hall and led Hermione in. She followed, docile. Calm. Followed Draco to the front of the hall, followed him down into a kneel in front of the throne. Draco went to one knee, his head bowed, but Hermione folded her legs under her, sitting on her heels with her hands resting, palms up, on her thighs. A low murmur pressed on the cotton over her ears, but nothing else reached her until she heard Draco's soft mutter. "Look up."

Follow his orders. Play the game.

Hermione looked up, looked into the red eyes of the Dark Lord. She held still while he examined her, met his eyes with her face and body still. At her side, Draco trembled, but Hermione stayed as still as a statue. Dark-robed Death Eaters moved at the corners of her vision; scraggle-haired werewolves paced the corners of the hall. Hermione stayed calm.

"Little Mudblood." The Dark Lord's voice rolled through the hall, passing over her like a cloud over the sun. "I hope you find our hospitality to be to your liking. I see young Malfoy hasn't managed to kill you yet. Though, that's not surprising. He's never had the stomach for it." Laughter rippled through the room, and Draco tensed, but his head stayed bowed. The Dark Lord raised one finger and the hall went silent again. "So tell me, little Mudblood. Malfoy's assignment. The reason you're not being picked out of Fenrir's teeth. How _is_ that going?"

A specific question. No indication that she wasn't Draco's toy. Stay calm. "Everything is going...." Hermione's lashes fluttered as she picked her way through her thoughts, the Imperius making it as difficult as finding dry ground after a rainstorm. "I ... I obey. Draco. I obey."

Red eyes flicked to Draco, then back to her. "Interesting. I wouldn't have thought he'd have what it took to do anything to train you, and look at you now. Quiet, docile, obedient. Practically a miracle. It's as if he's in control of your every thought."

Draco visibly flinched at the emphasis the Dark Lord put on the word 'control', and a dark laugh came from the throne. "Good try, young Malfoy. The Imperius? You are good at that one, I remember. But really, did you think it would work?"

"My Lord, I.... She is intelligent. She's pragmatic. She's...." Draco cleared his throat and lowered his bent knee, mirroring Hermione's subservient posture. "I am fulfilling your directive, my Lord. She's being trained. I swear to you. She is breaking, nothing more."

The Dark Lord stared at them both, his chin propped on one hand, his fingers drumming against his cheek. Over his head, the green sphere spun, the pair of bent and cracked glasses twisting around and around. He shook his head and sighed. "I expected more of you, young Malfoy. Foolish of me, perhaps. You have failed me. Fenrir, come here."

Draco hissed and Hermione's heart raced. Fenrir. The werewolf. The punishment, the failure. No.

_No_.

She keened as something in her mind struggled up and fought, and she flung herself at Draco, wrapping her arms around his waist and burrowing her head against his stomach. The collar pressed into her throat, the hem of her dress caught in the chain and rucked up her thighs, but Hermione paid no attention. Draco's orders rushed through her head, his instructions pounded on her skull. _Give him the show he wants_.

Hermione sobbed, clinging to Draco and trembling, words falling off her lips like a waterfall. "Please, please, Draco, please. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please. I'll do anything, please. I've been good, I've been so good, Draco, please don't give me away." She raised her head and looked up to his widened, shocked eyes through a veil of her hair. "Please. My-my Lord, please."

Behind her, that high-pitched laugh crackled through the air, and Draco stiffened, one hand locking in the collar at the back of her neck as the Dark Lord's mocking, amused voice drifted to them. "Now _that_ is more like it. Do get off the floor, Malfoy. Let's see your Mudblood dance."

Draco trembled, hiding the action in the motions of adjusting his robes and pushing Hermione off him. Hermione fought, clung to him as best she could, but he jerked on the chain and choked her with the collar. She looked up to him as he stood, watched him bite at his mouth, watched his lips go pale and thin. He opened his mouth to speak.

A violent, vehement shouting came from the back of the hall and Draco's gaze snapped that direction. Hermione shuffled forward on her knees and clutched at Draco's leg, hiding her face in the folds of his robes. From under her lashes, she could see the Dark Lord staring towards the end of the hall, past them. The shouting grew louder, became screaming, became a woman's voice reaching for the sky in horrible, rattling cries. The voice belonged to Bellatrix, and the name she screamed in tones that promised retribution belonged to her husband. Hermione stared at the Dark Lord's robes, the rumble from the Death Eaters slowly sinking into her mind. Rodolphus. Body. Dead. Rodolphus Lestrange was dead. Body found outside the castle walls. Defiled, damaged. _Eaten_.

The Dark Lord snarled. He shoved off his throne and stalked towards the ruckus, the Death Eaters making way in front of him. "Dismissed, Malfoy," he snapped at them as he passed, and even through her hazy senses, even through the voice in her head that alternately gibbered sickly at her actions and heaped praise on her for obeying, for playing the game properly, for giving a good show, Hermione heard Draco's sharp exhale of relief.

She looked up and he looked down. He mouthed something to her, something she couldn't read, couldn't understand, then he gripped the chain and tugged her to her feet. "C'mon," he muttered. "Before he changes his mind."

* * *

Their trip back down to the dungeons went much faster, Draco moving at a pace that just barely remained at a walk. Despite Hermione's shorter legs, she kept up with him, stayed at his side without the slightest tension in the chain. There was enough tension in Draco's body to make up for any lack. Hermione didn't have enough time or thought to notice anything except the rush of her heart. Even the screams and cries from the rooms they passed were nothing but blurs of sound to her.

They reached their room and Draco shoved her in, slamming the door behind them and throwing several spells at it, locking spells, silencing spells, each incantation spat and hurried. When he finished, he shoved his wand into his sleeve and sagged against the door, forehead and hands smashed to the heavy wood. His shoulders shook, his breathing came in rapid, heaving pants. Hermione stood behind him, her hands loose at her sides, her face blank. Stay calm. Act proper. _I'll keep you safe._

It took several minutes for Draco to gain control over his breathing. He turned, slowly, then swore under his breath. With hurried, jerky motions, he unbuckled the collar and pulled it from her neck, then threw it into a corner. "You did good, Granger," he muttered, cupping her face. "You did good. You doing all right?"

Hermione looked at him without moving. "Stay calm," she said, eager to make sure he knew that she'd behaved, eager to show respect, to act proper. "Stay calm."

Draco's brows furrowed, then he sucked in a sharp breath. "Fuck. You're still under.... _Dammit_." He stepped back and snatched his wand out of his sleeve, snapping it at her and releasing the Imperius.

Hermione's breathing increased immediately. Her heart raced, her mind spun, her eyes widened. She started to tremble, everything she'd seen, everything that had happened coming to her as fast and heated as if the cotton wadding wrapped around her senses had suddenly been set on fire. She whimpered, she keened. As Draco reached for her, her mind snapped into sharp focus and she screamed.

Blood splattered across the walls. Rank smells in the corridors. Parvati's stretched out, pleading hand. The Dark Lord. The werewolves. The absolute, utter fear that they would take her away from Draco.

Hermione screamed, her throat going raw within seconds from the pure force behind it. She covered her face, locked her fingers in her fringe and pulled on it. Draco jumped forward, wrapping his arms around her. "Shhh," he whispered, his head bent to hers as she pressed her face, her hands, into his robes as if she could burrow through the fabric and hide herself inside him. "Shh, it's all right, Granger. _Hermione_. It's all right. We're safe. You did a great job. You did perfect. We're safe, shh." He murmured to her, the same words and reassurances over and over.

She clung to him, clung to his robes. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed, wept in Draco's arms as he maneuvered them across the room and into the alcove. He dropped backwards onto the bed and pulled her down with him. Hermione curled into a ball and cried, her hands pushing against his chest and almost immediately pulling him close again. Days worth of tension and fear, of unanswered questions, of a mask goggling at her from the cupboard, bubbled up and spilled over. She didn't care how weak it looked, didn't care how pathetic she sounded. Draco'd promised to keep her safe.

"You promised," she said, the words barely recognizable through her whimpering. She sniffled and wiped her face on Draco's robes to sniffle some more. Draco didn't protest, didn't complain, just held on to her tight. "You promised, Draco. You promised if I acted proper, you'd keep me safe."

"You acted proper, Hermione. You did it all right. You were perfect." Draco ducked his head to speak into her hair. Hermione could feel his lips moving on the crown of her head, and her fingers tightened in his robes. He kept saying it to her, kept repeating the same words for several minutes, several long minutes, until Hermione's trembling and crying eased.

It wasn't Draco's fault. He'd been right to put her under the Imperius. If he hadn't, she would not have walked into the Great Hall under her own power, wouldn't have been able to face the Dark Lord. The walls covered with splotches of blood. Parvati covered with splotches of blood. Draco gave her treatment that no one else in the castle was given, let her live in comparative luxury. Meals, clothes, baths, books. She was sheltered from what was happening out there, protected from everything, even the screams of her friends. He'd been right to put her under. It had kept her safe. He'd kept his promise.

Hermione raised her head, her breath bouncing back to her in warm puffs off Draco's throat. He'd kept his promise, kept her safe. It was only fair that she kept her promise. That she played the game, that she acted the proper little captive. She tipped her head back another inch and pressed her lips to the soft flesh under his jaw. He tensed, swallowed hard, and splayed his hands across her back. Hermione uncurled, her legs stretching out to align with his. Her bare toes prodded at his shins and she kissed his jaw again, her mouth lingering on his skin.

"Hermione, don't." Draco wriggled backwards, bringing his hands around to catch her wrists. "Don't do this. You don't have to. You're not under the Imperius anymore, and you know I don't ... I haven't expected anything like that out of you. Not once. I told you, I asked my Lord to give you to me because I thought he'd kill you. I was trying to do you a favor. I didn't ask for you because I wanted.... Hermione, I can't kill. I can only torture under threat of getting it myself. I'm not like them." He twisted his fingers in hers and pushed, levering her away from his body. "I'm not a killer, and I'm _not_ a rapist."

"It's not rape if I'm willing, Draco." Hermione whispered the words, stretching her neck in efforts to kiss him again. She managed to brush his chin before he tilted his head out of her reach. "I'm willing. I'm offering. I'm playing the game."

"No." Draco pushed her back again, harder, but she wrapped her legs around him to stay in place. The action pressed her hips into his and she heard Draco stifle a grunt. She wriggled, rocked her hips against him, and felt a twitch through his robes, felt the throb of his cock. "Hermione, no." Draco's protest was weaker, softer. His grip on her hands loosened.

"You kept me safe, Draco. You kept me safe, and you haven't asked for anything." She pulled her hands out of his grip and spread them across his chest. She dragged them down his robes to undo the fastenings and slip her fingers under the fabric. Under her palm, Draco's heart raced; against her stomach, his cock pulsed. "You've given me so much. You've done so much for me. Let me do this for you."

* * *

Draco's protests didn't last long. He was young, he was alone, and she was offering. One small part of Hermione asked her what she was doing, why she was making the offer at all, and the rest of her didn't have much of an answer beyond: Alone. Afraid. Someone comfortable, someone familiar. Someone that made her feel safe, someone who was warm, and alive, and who'd shown her some kindness. A lot of kindness that could get him into a lot of trouble if anyone knew. It seemed a fair trade to her.

Hermione spread her hands across Draco's chest and shoved his robes off his shoulders. She traced the line of the long scar down his torso, followed it from his shoulder, across his heart, and to the waistband of his trousers. Harry had done that to him. Harry had nearly killed him, through sheer stupidity, through messing around with magic he didn't know, didn't understand. Hermione remembered how angry she'd been for that. Draco hadn't deserved it. He hadn't deserved so many things that had happened to him. Neither did she. But things were as they were and they had to make the most of it, and that was Hermione's plan.

She levered up onto one elbow, leaning over Draco's chest. She bent down and kissed his shoulder, kissed a line down the scar. Draco held his breath, his chest muscles tensing under her lips. His hands fluttered at her hair, pulling it back and tucking it behind her ear. She glanced up through her lashes at him, at his face. Draco had his eyes closed tight and his nostrils flared as he apparently fought to hold his breath steady. As Hermione moved down the line of Draco's scar, he gave up on that struggle, and sucked in an audible breath that shook as he exhaled. His hand rested on the back of her hair, fingers twitching against her skull when she licked the scar over his stomach, the skin in that line even paler than the skin surrounding it.

Hermione dragged her hand down Draco's ribs and over his hip to rest on his groin. Beneath her palm, beneath the fabric of his trousers, he was half-hard and warm, his body reacting to her touches. Hermione closed her eyes and let her mind drift for a moment, sent her thoughts checking over her body. She wasn't reacting quite as well as Draco was, wasn't quite as wet as he was hard. "Draco," she murmured, raising her head to kiss along his jaw and nuzzle at his ear. "Draco, do you.... Um. Do you have anything we can use for lube?"

He quivered under her, his arms coming up to wrap around her back and hold her in place. He opened his eyes, the pale grey of his irises darkened to the color of shadows. He stared at her in bewilderment for a moment, then his eyes widened and he shook his head. Draco licked his lips and swallowed. "N-no. No, I don't think so." Hermione thought she saw a flicker of disappointment flash through his eyes before he blinked and tipped his head. "Whiskey."

Hermione couldn't help the small laugh that bubbled up. "I think that would sting."

Draco rolled his eyes and tapped his hand on her back. "_Social_ lubricant, Granger. Can't do much else, but I can get you drunk. Should make you plenty relaxed." His expression turned sheepish and he shrugged one shoulder. "Always worked for me before."

He rolled off the bed and crossed the room to fetch the whiskey bottle, his boots and socks toed off once he was on his feet. While he had his back turned, Hermione pushed his robes onto the floor and sat up, pulling her dress off over her head. Draco turned around and nearly dropped the whiskey bottle. He clutched it to his chest with both hands. Hermione didn't know what he'd expected to see; the dress was the only clothing she had other than wearing his boots in the morning when the stones of the floor were ice cold. No bra, no knickers, nothing but the dress.

Draco stared in silence at her, his throat moving convulsively as he swallowed. The longer he kept quiet, the more nervous it made Hermione feel, and she slowly pulled the dress over her lap before she wrapped her arms around herself, covering her breasts. Draco stepped towards the alcove with a muttered protest, then shook his head at himself and moved to sit down on the edge of the bed. He held the bottle out to Hermione and nodded at it. "Drink. Unless you've ... unless you've changed your mind. Which is all right, by the way." He glanced at her, his eyes dropping from her covered breasts to her thighs. He looked away and swallowed again.

He was as nervous about taking her offer as Hermione was about making it, that much was obvious. She took the bottle from him and took a drink, feeling the whiskey burn down her throat as she thought. Had she changed her mind? Was she going to? She took another drink, and another, her throat quickly numbing to the burn and her body reacting to the warmth. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, always had been, and she knew it wouldn't take much for her to switch from sober to tipsy and beyond. She had to make her decision final before she crossed that line.

Draco sat on the very edge of the bed, his forearms on his thighs and his hands locked together, dangling between his knees. He stared at the floor, his back and shoulders stiff, the muscles in his arms bunching. From this angle, Hermione could see the Dark Mark burned into his arm, the twisted snake and skull that glared black in his pale skin. She took another drink, eying the tattoo. It looked like it had hurt. Looked like it had literally been branded into him. Hermione twisted the bottle in her hands as she looked Draco over. He'd been hurt, repeatedly, in a war she was certain he'd wanted to fight as little as she had. He'd been a bigot and a bully all through school, but she'd heard how he was raised, how he'd been brought up. Could he really be blamed? Was it really his fault? Didn't he deserve a little happiness as well? Just a little pleasure to make up for the pain he'd been put through.

Hermione took another drink, then one more, and leaned over to set the bottle on the floor. Draco flinched when she touched his arm, and he turned his head just enough to look at her. "Change your mind?" His voice sounded nearly as tense as his bicep felt under her hand, and the skin around his eyes tightened. "I told you, Granger, you don't have to--"

She cut him off with her fingers smoothed across his mouth. She leaned in, cradled his jaw in her hand, and kissed him. Draco held still, seemed almost frozen, and when Hermione looked at him from under her lashes, his eyes were open, wide open. Hermione made a soft humming sound, a quiet noise of reassurance, and parted her lips to brush her tongue over his mouth. She pressed closer, her breasts against his arm, and Draco's eyes drifted closed. He took a slow breath and his mouth softened under hers. She felt his lips moving, heard a whisper, and pulled back just enough for him to speak. "Hermione. Say yes. I-I can't.... You have to say yes."

"Draco." She stroked his cheek and ran her fingers down the column of his throat. Draco shuddered, his heart fluttering under her palm when she flattened it to his chest. "This is my idea. This is for you. A thank you. It's a gift. _Yes_."

* * *

Draco shucked his trousers as Hermione stretched across the bed. She could feel the quivers running through her body, but the heat of the whiskey kept them small and anticipatory rather than anxious. This wasn't something she needed to worry about; this had been her idea. Her offer. Draco wasn't like the others, wasn't taking anything from her. He hadn't hurt her, had gone out of his way not to hurt her. He'd protected her. She wanted to do this for him.

And, just a little bit, for herself. She'd slept with Draco, _slept_ in his arms and against his body. Unconscious erections in his sleep were not unfamiliar to her, and she knew what his body felt like against hers. Knew what his cock felt like rubbing against her hip or her arse. Once or twice, she'd thought about touching him, thought about running her fingers over the crotch of his trousers and feeling her way around his groin, but she'd always stopped herself for fear that he'd wake up and take advantage of the situation, of her. Now, that wasn't an option. Wasn't a problem.

Draco crawled into the bed with her, stretched out beside her with his arm shoved up under the pillow. Hermione suspected he'd done it to hide his Mark from her. Silly of him, she thought. She'd seen it a dozen times, had it wrapped around her night after night. It wasn't frightening to her. It was part of him. Hermione reached under the pillow and tugged Draco's arm into the open air, then rolled onto her side and bent over his arm. She leaned down to kiss his wrist. Her lips traveled up his arm, small kisses peppered over his skin and across the Mark. Draco's muscles tensed, his breath shook. Hermione murmured just at the edge of hearing, murmured "Shush. It's all right, Draco," and lifted her head to kiss him.

She brushed Draco's fringe back from his forehead and lowered her mouth over his. Closed lips pressed to closed lips, warmth and whiskey sealing them together. After a moment, Draco's mouth relaxed under hers, and she felt his hand smoothing up her back, long fingers prodding along the line of her backbone. She knew it was ridged, knobbly from weight loss and stress, but Draco didn't seem to mind. He stroked up to the nape of her neck and down her shoulder blades, and his mouth softened into their kiss.

Hermione parted her lips and brushed her tongue against his mouth, the point just dragging over his lower lip, soothing dry, chewed-on skin. Draco made a soft sound and his fingers twisted into her hair. Hermione pushed her weight onto her elbow and slid her free hand down Draco's chest, following the scar again. This time she traced it to the end, trailed down its full length over his stomach and the sharp prominence of his hipbone. Her breath caught in her throat when she realized that the tips of her fingers had followed the scar into a patch of hair, and she broke their kiss to look down Draco's torso. The end of the scar rested in the hollow of his hip, not even a hand's-width away from Draco's stiffening cock, and she muttered a curse under her breath, angry, _so_ angry at how much damage Harry Potter had nearly done to Draco. She'd make it up to him.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and bent to kiss Draco's chest, to let her lips trail down his body, to follow the long and silvery line on his torso. She wriggled down the bed as she kissed him, her hand resting lightly on his hip. As she moved lower, she inched her fingers through what had proven to be a soft bed of pale blond hair, until she wrapped her hand around the base of Draco's cock and lifted it upright against her cheek. Draco keened quietly, a deep breath exhaled in a sharp puff that arched his back off the bed. Hermione rubbed his cock against her cheek, feeling a small spot of moisture touch her skin as Draco's arousal grew and the tip of his cock beaded fluid.

Hermione arranged herself at Draco's side and bent to take him into her mouth. She barely got her lips around the ridge of his cock when Draco locked his fingers in her hair and gave a sharp tug. "Granger, don't," he said with a grunt, twisting his hips and snapping his free hand around her wrist. "Don't. Please. Um. I won't ... I'll come too fast. Don't want to. Come up here."

She felt torn between a strange, bewildering disappointment that he'd stopped her and a bemused pleasure that he'd given her a solid reason not to continue. She'd never cared for the taste, and when she was in the middle of trying to do something that pleased Draco was not the best time to be making faces of disgust. With her hand still wrapped around his cock, Hermione slid up the bed, face to face with Draco. He lifted his head to kiss her as she stroked him slowly. This kiss was less tentative, more needy.

Draco's mouth opened and Hermione copied the action, her breath catching as he swept his tongue across hers. Her hand moved in rhythm with his tongue, up and down, in and out. Hermione wanted to purr at the solid weight of Draco's cock in her hand, at the moist warmth of his tongue brushing hers. His mouth and his body weren't the only things that were warm. She was, as well. She felt heated from the inside, the whiskey radiating from her abdomen to her extremities until even her hair and nails felt as though she was floating in a Caribbean sea. Warm, comfortable, happy. She shifted her legs to slide one between Draco's, and hesitated. Just for a moment, just long enough to realize that her body was relaxing with the whiskey and with Draco's slow, insistent kisses, and that her arousal was growing as much as his. She was wet, and getting wetter.

Draco rolled, pushing her onto her back. He leaned over her, his lips on her throat and his hand on her thigh. The posture was reminiscent of several times when she'd playacted for the eyes of whatever Death Eater had decided to interrupt the silent evenings she spent with Draco, but this time, she wasn't acting. She was willing. She was _more_ than willing. Her thighs fell apart without any prodding or urging, and Draco dragged his hand up to rest against her cunt. He kissed her again, kissed her deep, and slid his fingers into the folds of her body. The motion was easy, slick, Hermione's body receptive to his touches. She whimpered in anticipation as Draco hooked one foot over her leg and pulled it towards him, widening her thighs. His fingers moved on her cunt, one slipping deep into her.

Hermione writhed, a desperate sound trapped in Draco's kiss. He thrust deeper, both tongue and finger, and rocked against her hip, rubbing his cock on her skin. Draco gave her a few strokes, a few moments, then added a second finger, and soon, a third. He twisted his hand and brought his thumb up, probing through her labia to find her clit. Hermione's cry broke the seal of their kiss, and Draco gave a soft, pleased laugh before he bent his head to her throat and sucked on the skin over her pulse. He worked her body, stroking her, kissing her, until she gripped at his shoulders. "_Please_, Draco."

He rose up over and settled between her thighs, the head of his cock pushing against her cunt. Hermione reached down to guide him in. Draco held his weight up on his hands, his head bowed to watch as he sank into her body. They both groaned, both stilled when he'd fit himself to her fully. A few minutes of adjustment, a few more kisses and whispered words of encouragement, and Draco pulled out of her so slowly that Hermione could feel the ridge of his cock rubbing against every inch of her cunt. He slid back into her, the movement deep and controlled, then repeated it. Again, and again.

Speed came gradually, as did power. Draco lowered to his forearms, wriggled his hands up under her and grasped her shoulders, holding her as he thrust in over and over. Hermione spread her hands over his back, dragged her nails down his spine and gripped his arse to pull him into her. His chest rubbed her nipples as he moved, sweat beaded up on his forehead. Each thrust brought a soft grunt from her, quiet little pants of excitement and pleasure. She'd thought, originally, that this would be just for Draco, that this would all be a reward for him for treating her with such kindness.

It was becoming a reward for her as well. Draco was much better at this than she'd anticipated, much better than anyone she'd been with before. He listened to her, slowing when he heard her breath changing, picking up speed when she clawed at his back in silent demands. Hermione was on the verge of wriggling her hand down between them to rub at her clit and push herself over the edge of orgasm when Draco bent his head and bit at her throat, then snapped his hips back and pulled out of her.

Hermione squealed in protest as Draco sat back on his heels. He gripped her ankles and flipped her onto her stomach, then grabbed her hips and pulled her up onto her knees. He crouched over her, his cock rubbing against the outer folds of her cunt, and he growled into her ear. "Ever been fucked in the arse, Granger?"

It sounded like a challenge, some sort of test to see how willing she truly was. Hermione suspected that he expected her to squirm and fight, that her reaction was supposed to be denial or refusal. It wasn't. She wasn't sure if it was the whiskey or if it was the man behind her and the length of the cock prodding at her body, but Hermione stretched her arms out to touch the wall of the alcove, lowered her shoulders, and raised her hips. She pressed backward, pushing into Draco. "Do it."

Draco shivered, groaning against her ear, and the surprised, needy sound of his voice made her inch just that much closer to orgasm. Draco gripped the cheeks of her arse and pulled them apart, exposing her anus. He slipped his fingers into her cunt and slicked the juices of her arousal up through the cleft of her body, probing gently at the tight hole. Hermione exhaled and consciously ordered her body to relax. Viktor and Ron had both tried this before, but neither of them had asked. She shuddered as the head of Draco's cock touched her body, and she tipped her hips more for him. Even when it was something he wanted, just for him, Draco asked.

She could feel his fingers shifting against her arse as he gripped his cock to guide into her. The whiskey was helping tremendously, her muscles loose, and the head of his cock pushed through the tight ring of her anus with only the slightest resistance. Draco froze, groaning; Hermione groaned, trembling. It seemed like it took ages, eons, before he worked fully into her, before she could feel the weight of his scrotum touching her cunt when he was sunk into her to the very root. Hermione widened her knees, reached back between her thighs, and ran her fingers over Draco's bollocks, stroking him in encouragement. She slid her fingers into her cunt in imitation of a cock, and felt the length of him through her inner wall. She twisted her head to look at him and the expression of sheer pleasure - the hooded eyes, the flushed cheeks, the dropped jaw - spurred her to rub her fingers over her clit.

Draco moved, pulling out slowly and pushing in gently, and Hermione stroked herself in time to his thrusts. As he picked up speed, so did she, and it didn't take her long to feel the quaking start low in her gut. "Draco," she muttered, her voice guttural and breaking when he drove into her. "Draco. Gonna come. Close, Draco, close." She closed her eyes and pillowed her forehead on her arm, her back rounding as she rubbed at her clit, her fingers moving in rapid circles over the little nodule of sensation. Draco grunted and his hands locked on her hips, pulling her onto his cock.

He twisted his hips, grinding into her, and his hands moved. One slipped down to push two fingers into her cunt, the other slipped up to wrap around her sweat-slicked hair. Two simultaneous thrusts and one sharp pull. Hermione convulsed, pleasure and pain mixing together and sending her into orgasm, wild and fluttering like a flock of songbirds. She shrieked, she screamed, she sang out for him, his name and calls to the gods of ecstasy intertwined in her voice. A few more thrusts and Draco joined her, his voice unstrung in pleasure, his semen spilling into her body. He clung to her, his weight on her back and his arm wrapped around her stomach, clung to her and panted into her hair until their overused muscles couldn't hold either of them upright any longer. They collapsed onto the bed with desperate gasps for air, and laid there in exhaustion until sleep claimed them both.

* * *

Hermione woke the next morning on clean sheets, in a clean dress. The room was tidy, and Draco was gone. There was no evidence that anything about the day would be the slightest bit different than any other day, no evidence except the ache in her body when she moved. She went into the bathroom, gingerly, every muscle in her back and hips and arse protesting that she needed to hold still and lie down. In the mirror, she could see the truth of what had happened to her the night before. Her neck bore several small, round, reddened marks, and she touched one with an unconscious smile curling her lips. Her hair was wild, her eyes were sparkling, and she could not stop smiling. Not in the slightest.

She stripped to take a long bath and ran her fingers over her body as the water ran. Her breasts held the marks of Draco's mouth, her hips had stripes of dark purple fingerprint bruises. Her thighs, to her surprise, were clean, with no drips of dried semen. She supposed she should feel a little violated that Draco had obviously cleaned her up in her sleep, touched her while she was unconscious, but all she felt was gratitude. He'd done her yet another kindness, given her yet another reason to continue doing anything she could to please him. Draco showed her nothing but kindness and pleasure, made her life as comfortable as was possible within the stones of her cage. He protected her. She'd keep him happy.

Hermione dressed after her bath and went to make the bed. In the corner, crumpled in the small space between the alcove wall and the mattress, she found a torn bit of parchment. It looked as though it had fallen from Draco's pocket in the conversation and kisses before he'd stripped, and been shoved out of the way as they had sex. She settled in the middle of the bed and unfolded the parchment, careful not to tear it further. Draco's handwriting, scraps of sentences written in a code that took her some time to decipher.

_have the reader  
safe for now  
agon_

She sat on the bed with the parchment loose in her hand, her eyes locked on the wall across the room, her mind racing and spinning. When the door opened and Draco stepped through, the satchel over his shoulder, she opened her mouth before he'd managed to get the door shut again. "Why did you kiss me yesterday? Before you took me to see him, before we went into the hall, you kissed me. Why?"

Draco stilled, then set the satchel on the table with a clink. He rested one hand on it and licked his lips, his mouth opening without sound. He went to the cabinet and fetched the bottle of whiskey, mostly empty after the night before, and poured himself the last of it. "Because I wanted to. And if we blew our little act, I'd never get another chance. Hard to kiss when you're dead."

She folded that information up with the tiny rush of confused pleasure that sped through her when he said it, and tucked that away in the back of her mind to think about later. "I'm the reader, you're the dragon. Who are you writing to?"

Draco drained the whiskey, his eyes locked on her face, and slammed the empty glass down onto the cabinet with a force that made her flinch. He stalked across the room, and for the first time, she saw the Death Eater in him, saw the vicious anger that could bring a man to kill. His gaze dropped to her hand, and he snatched the parchment away from her. He glanced at it, and his face twisted up as he crumpled the parchment and flung it away. "None of your business, Granger."

"Who are you _writing_ to? Who knows about me, who knows I'm here? Who _cares_ about me? Draco, tell me!"

Draco grabbed her by the arms and jerked her to her feet, the pressure hard and bruising. "Shut up. Stop talking, stop asking questions, just shut _up_."

Hermione plastered her hands to Draco's robes, locked her fingers in the material and stared up at his eyes. They were wide, dark, the skin around them so tense that it quivered. Hermione looked at him, really _looked_ at him. He wasn't angry, wasn't enraged. He was frightened. More than frightened. He was terrified. Hermione clung to Draco, her body held tight to stop it from shaking. She wasn't an idiot, wasn't a fool, and knew that while she might not understand the reasons behind Draco's actions, any of his actions, she knew there had to be a reason. This time, she suspected she understood the reason.

She wasn't the only person he was trying to protect. Draco was trying to protect Draco. He'd tried to get her killed at first, to save her from the werewolf. Now he was trying to keep her safe, to save himself. There was someone out there who knew she was here, and someone who would help Draco if he helped her. It had to be true. Hope burned in Hermione's heart. A desperate, horrible hope. She had to believe that. She released Draco's robes and raised her hands to cup his face. She drew him down and kissed him, her fingers shoved into his hair and her mouth locked to his.

She kissed him in silence, no sound but breathing around them, until Draco made a quiet noise and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her, surrounded her, held her tight. "Play the game, Hermione," he whispered, his mouth moving along the line of her jaw to nuzzle into her hair and against her ear. "Play along, and I'll keep you safe. I'll keep you safe, and we'll all make it out of this alive. I just have to follow my orders, and so do you."

"I understand," she said, resting her hand over his heart. She tipped her head and kissed him one more time before nodding toward the satchel on the table. "Does he ... does he want to see us again?" Draco nodded in silence and Hermione let him go. She went to the satchel and removed the chain and collar. Without a word, she fastened the collar around her neck and held the length of chain out to Draco. He took the end of it and tugged, drawing her close. She went willingly into his arms.

The question she'd asked him the first night flashed back into her head. _Is there anything I can do for you?_ She smiled to herself, nodding. Follow his orders, play the game, give them a show. Do it all proper, and he'd keep her safe.

And she would save him.


End file.
